Lower School Curriculum
Junior Kindergarten
Our Junior Kindergarten program is a play-based, developmentally appropriate exploration of the world around us, rooted in a rich, engaging, and nurturing environment. The focus on discovery, high-level thinking, creative problem solving and observation begins in the Junior Kindergarten year. Students build an academic foundation through small group instruction in early literacy, handwriting, and mathematics, and through intentionally designed opportunities for exploration, play, and the seizing of “teachable moments.”
Our Responsive Classroom begins in the Junior Kindergarten year, providing children the opportunity to build community with their peers through daily meetings and a shared language focusing on the Rossman Rules of Respect, Responsibility, Honesty and Kindness. These concepts will be a focus throughout their Rossman journey. A highlight of the JK year is the spring Art Show during which students showcase their “inspired by” pieces created in the style of famous artists.
Senior Kindergarten
In the Senior Kindergarten year, students begin meeting with teachers in small, leveled reading groups, supporting students as they stretch out words, apply their phonics and sight word knowledge, and build their capacity to comprehend the text they decode.
Budding SK writers delve into the Writing Workshop program, developing their knowledge of the writing process and expressing themselves through inventive spelling and illustrations. Celebratory publishing parties at the end of each writing unit build the confidence and excitement of our young writers as they share their finished work with peers and teachers.
The Everyday Mathematics curriculum is also introduced in Senior Kindergarten, introducing foundational concepts including addition, subtraction, money, and time.
Ample opportunities for play and discovery are built into the SK day to support a well-balanced, developmentally appropriate program. In May, families join us to celebrate the completion of the SK year with a lively SK graduation ceremony showcasing the accomplishments of our amazing Seniors!
First Grade
First grade students proudly develop their independence in this pivotal year. Nightly homework and spelling tests are introduced and students use the opportunities to build their organization, responsibility, and study habits.
Through small guided reading groups, students learn a variety of strategies to support decoding, engage in word work, and build comprehension skills across an assortment of genres. First grade authors engage in the writing process to develop written pieces during daily Writing Workshop. Authors eagerly share their writing with classmates in the Author’s Chair each day. Perhaps a favorite writing project of our students is a nonfiction research project on bats!
First graders celebrate themselves as mathematicians. Each day math centers, partner work, and hand-on games and activities fuel mathematical flexibility, fluency and learning .
Students relish their increased time in the science lab as the subject becomes fully departmentalized, and they particularly enjoy their time in the Drosten Greenhouse as part of their plant study.
Students venture off campus for field trips in their first grade year, a highlight of which is a visit to the Children’s Village at The Magic House as a culmination to their study of economics in social studies.
Second Grade
In this final year of our lower school, second graders tackle increased challenges in geography study, literature projects, mathematical problem solving, and cursive instruction. Second graders build their study skills and responsibility through the introduction of an assignment notebook and through the execution of long-term assignments such as literature, geography, and science projects and self-paced book reports.
Class literature books are introduced in second grade and students read through books together, using small group opportunities to develop reading fluency and comprehension skills. A hallmark of the second grade year is the completion of cursive handwriting instruction. By spring, students are excited to show off this new skill and complete all written work in cursive. Students also enhance their research skills as they document the struggles and achievements of a historical figure in a Black History Month writing project.
Mathematical challenges abound as second graders solidify foundational skills in addition, subtraction, and money, and tackle new topics such as multiplication, fractions, and area and perimeter.
Geography is a central focus of the second grade curriculum. Students begin the year building their knowledge of maps and create a detailed map of their route from home to Rossman School with all essential map components. In the remainder of the year, students complete an in-depth study of each continent.